Refugee Women learning how to spin yarn, 1947 (Courtesy the Partition Museum): The government of India undertook to train unaccompanied refugee women and girls in tasks that would make them capable of becoming self-reliant citizens. In this poster, such a programme is underway, under the anxious gaze of Nehru. Most such projects failed. Some camps for these women, seen by the state as ‘permanent liabilities’, are still in existence in India. Reference: https://www.cam.ac.uk/files/a-tryst-with-destiny/index.html

" On September 24, 1947, the train of refugees stopped at Kamoke, a prosperous Hindu-Sikh trading centre situated a few miles from Gujranwala in what is now Pakistan. Dada said, “The train was stopped by Muslim gangs, who wanted to loot and kill and rape people.” These mobs were abetted by members of the police force and National Guards, who distributed the captured girls among themselves. In fear of this eventuality, Avtar Singh “shot all his daughters dead, because he didn’t want his girls to fall into the hands of Muslims”. According to anthropologist Veena Das, sexual violence was used in 1947 as a method of “polluting” communities. If women were the custodians of honour, then defiling them ensured victory. Avtar Singh’s throat was slit, and his grievously wounded body dumped on a nearby riverbank. Playing dead, he slumped in agony. But a slight movement alerted a member of the mob, who beat him with a stick, worsening the injuries. Rescued by Indian soldiery, he was taken to a hospital where he was reunited with his son, who was initially unable to recognise him, and one of his daughters, who had miraculously survived her father’s gunshot. The overall number of casualties and women abducted in the Kamoke massacre is unclear, but archival evidence puts the figure in the hundreds. " Reference: https://scroll.in/magazine/930295/they-all-became-animals-my-grandfather-remembers-the-trauma-and-violence-of-indias-partition

" As Punjab’s cities transfigured into urban slaughterhouses in August 1947, Darji – dressed in army uniform – travelled from Lahore in a British army van to urge his parents and step-daughter to leave Jhelum. This was after he had facilitated his immediate family’s exit to the Indian side of the new border. Perceiving no danger, they refused. Darji trusted the imam-sahib,” my grandfather said with regret. When tensions intensified further, Darji’s father resolved to leave. He started loading the contents of his house onto a bullock cart, ready to make the cross-border journey. When the pir caught sight of him packing his bags, he shot him dead. Hearing the report of the gun, Darji’s mother came running out of the house. She too was killed. Fearing the step-sister would be kidnapped and raped, a close family friend pierced her belly with a spear. Dada explained that this elder did not want anyone to “misbehave with the daughter of Captain Doctor Jaswant Singh. He wanted to save the honour and dignity of the family...and he did not want her to be taken away by those people.” " Reference: https://scroll.in/magazine/930295/they-all-became-animals-my-grandfather-remembers-the-trauma-and-violence-of-indias-partition